Owner Pose
Xiomara Rojas It was likely that Crush shouldn't be sitting in the middle of the football field, staring up at the stars while drinking an entire two liter bottle of Dr. Pepper, but Ms. MacIntyre was really the only one who could tell the teen what to do. So there she was, listening to death metal on an old boombox style radio, deafening anyone who happened to be near by, while enjoying herself some carbonated flavored syrup water.

The deal was not to get into any trouble and she could stay in the dorms, attend classes, have a place to call 'home', but that wasn't going to be easy given her nature. She was taking this time to revisit her decision to be at Happy Harbor, while watching the night sky as if something was going to fall out of it like she did nineteen years ago.
Madison Evans     Madison lost all track of time sometimes when she was practice. First it was sword play with her boken - and then firing arrows at the archery range. It's not until the loud music cuts in that she realizes it's gotten dark. "Oh. EM. GEE!" she gasps, dropping her bow and reaching for her bag where she'd put her phone.
    'Sorry mom busy at the archery range I'll clean up and head home right away I swear I'm not dead or nothing honest, seeeeeee?' This of course it accompanied by a selfie of herself, with the archery targets behind her.
    She starts hastily packing up her things - moving with enhanced speed to get the job done.
Irie West     How the heck anybody can catch the sound of death metal when one is going supersonic speeds is anybody's guess. Just another one of those mysteries of the Speed Force. Irie had stayed late to catch up on some homework, after missing a day of class due to crime fighting. The fighting crime part didn't take all that long. It was the police interviews and paperwork that she had to do afterwards that took foreeeeeeeeever.

    There's a yellow and red streak that passes by Crush only for it to come back, and Irie appears there. She's dressed simply, in a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt with the Flash logo emblazoned on the chest, and slung over it is a bright yellow backpack.

    "Oh hi, there!" she says to the girl on the field. "I haven't seen you before! Not that I know everybody who goes to the school. Are you new? I'm Irie, by the way. Wow, your music is loud. I was able to hear it going over 600 miles per hour! That's really something!"

    She notices her best friend, Madison, pop out of the school, and racing her way home. "Oh! And there's Maddie! She's my best friend! MADDIE! COME SAY HI TO THE NEW GIRL!"
Xiomara Rojas That was a lot of information and cheerful to absorb all at once. Crush has just managed to register the red and yellow streak when there is suddenly a girl standing there, looking extremely normal and sounding like every pep rally that ever existed in any time... all at once. What made it all worse was Crush was just about to take a drink of her soda when cheer exploded on her, causing her to nearly drop the bottle into her own lap. Thankfully her reflexes were quick enough to catch the bottle and stand herself up in the same moment.

"Da hell..." she blurts out, prepared to go all 'punch it mode' but then the cheerful just keeps right on going and gets aimed at someone else. This causes the large white skinned teen to look toward this Maddie, who is this Irie's 'best friend'.

"You on drugs?" is then asked bluntly, just to make certain of whether this is how Irie always is, and not some drug induced hyperactivity.
Madison Evans     "OH. EM. GEE, Irie if you're on drugs you're gonna geeeeeet it!" Madison exclaims as she comes closer - a bow slung over her shoulders. She grins at Xiomara before she adds, "Though - naaaah. She's not. This is just how Irie is. It's all that flashing around I think. Or something. I could be wrong. Why're you here so late, Irie? I was about to run home - my mom's gonna ground me for a month and a half! Or maybe not. 'cuz of the science fair - we'll see!"
Irie West     "Not unless the Speed Force is drugs," Irie tells Crush, putting her fists on her hips. She turns thoughtful, though. "I guess it might be. It /has/ changed my metabolism and brain functions so I /could/ just always be high and never know it. Hrm." She brightens at a thought, "That could be my next science fair project! 'Is Speed Force Drugs?'"

    "I was here making up for missing a class yesterday. You know that bank robbery in Metropolis that /almost/ happened?" She puffs out her chest proudly, "That was me making it an /almost/ bank robbery." She deflates a little bit, "But I had to speak to the police afterwards and give a statement and fill out paperwork, so that ate up my entire day. Don't worry about getting home too late. I'll give you a piggy back ride."
Xiomara Rojas Quieting the music with a kick to the boombox, Crush takes a moment to look between these two teens while trying to figure out if she walked into an alternate dimension while sitting on the field. Happy Harbor was one of those unique schools that took the unusual people, something her adoptive parents would have liked her to have attended earlier in life most likely, so these two were likely semi-normal teenagers. How the hell was she supposed to relate to that?

"Uh..." yep, that was a good start. "Name's Crush," she then adds, shifting slightly. "I'm new," is tossed in there to end it. There, she socialized, her adoptive mother would be do proud, if she wasn't dead.
Madison Evans     "Well - welcome! I'm Maddie. And you met Irie already. And we're the welcome wagon! I guess. I was just out at the archery range," she points off to one side of the field, "practicing. Because Dyani has a lot of things to say about the need for practice. Maybe sometime I could show you some archery? You know. If you wanted."
    She turns a broad grin on Irie as well - adding an appreciative nod as her friend offers to give her a lift home.
Irie West     "It's good to meet you Crush," Irie says in the kind of way makes you believe she really means it (and she does). "Are you an alien?" she asks, gesturing to the white skin and face markings and the red eyes. "Or a mutant maybe?" She seems genuinely curious about it, too.

    "Oh! Emiko's been giving me archery lessons too, back at the Tower! I tried shooting the arrows at super speed, but as soon as they left the speed force they just kind of disintegrated into splinters." She looks rather disappointed at that. "So no arrow minigun for me."
Xiomara Rojas That blunt question seems to hit Crush hard. Her expression changes, turning from amused and confused to down right grumpy, even as her body tenses and the free hand, the one now holding the soda, balls into a fist. It was just a question, not meant to be an insult or anything like that, but it was the one singular question that always rubbed the half-Czarnian the wrong way.

"Don't punch," she mutters under her breath, then sucks in a hard, deep breath before taking a single step back as she mutters to herself, "Be cool. You're past that. Let it go."

Once she's pretty certain she won't punch the glee club rolled into one girl, she offers a single nod. The kid was okay, she knew that, just the question. Ugh.

"Alien, half anyway," she finally says a bit gruffly at first but her tone eases as she adds, "Touchy subject is all."
Madison Evans     "Oh, is it?" Madison asks with puzzlement. "WhyyyyyI've met other aliens here at school, you know," she remarks, changing words clumsily, and not without making it obvious what she'd been about to ask. "Including one of the teachers! It's okay to be an alien here, you know. We don't judge. If we did - OH. EM. GEE, Ms. MacIntyre would FLIP! I don't even WANT to see that. You know, she has a giant demon dog thing that follows her around sometimes." Or she did.
Irie West     Irie frowns a bit. "Well, /I/ think aliens are cool, you know? There's a couple that live in the tower with me," she says as if that's common knowledge. "Kian is this bird guy. He's weird but in a cool way, you know? Then there's Kori. She's /really/ pretty and is a princess and everything!" She cocks her head and looks at Crush speculatively. "You're not a princess are you? Or, like, a half-princess?"

    She nods in agreement with Maddie. "Yeah. If anybody gives you a hard time about being a half alien, tell Ms. MacIntyre. She'll make sure that gets shut down /real/ quick. We've got aliens and mutants and all sorts of people here that don't really fit in anywhere else."
Xiomara Rojas A slight head tilt is offered as Madison explains about aliens in the school, though Crush didn't miss the almost question. Neither Irie or Maddie knew the truth about her, they couldn't know, unless they'd seen pictures of Lobo of course. Perhaps it was time to let go of that anger and just... nope, still angry, but maybe she could be accepted here anyway.

"Alien teacher, huh?" That was news that actually helped her brain calm a little, that there were other aliens around and accepted, and apparently teaching. "Okay... that's uh... I can get behind that." She shifts her weight slightly, scuffing her foot on the grass. "As for why it's a touchy subject, cause you were gonna ask... has to do with who my father is, but I ain't saying more than that."

Shifting her stance again, realizing that she was still all 'fight or fight' mode in how she was standing, she looks over to Irie and almost smiles... almost. "I'm no princess... come on, do I /look/ like the princess type?" Something seems to strike her at that exact moment, causing her to blink a few times. Maybe she /was/ a princess. Did being half of the last of a species make you a Princess?

A few more blinks and she looks between the two again, finally offering a real smile. "You two are nice," understatement of the year. "Thanks for being so... welcoming. I don't... socialization skills are limited, no friends, but I'm... trying."
Madison Evans     "So he must be like - real famous and awesome, or like... The Worst, right?" Madison says with a wry grin. "It's alright. My dad's The Worst, too. No big. Whoever your dad is, doesn't mean that has nothing at all to do with who //you// are, you know?" she explains in a cheerful tone.
    "And you know - making friends takes practice so- that's alright! You'll get the hang of it."
Irie West     Irie gives a shrug at Crush's question. "I dunno. A princess could look like anything! It doesn't have to be all frilly dresses and everything. Kori doesn't wear frilly dresses." Her cheeks redden a bit, "She.... doesn't wear much of anything at all at times." She quickly holds her hands up, "Ohnonono! I'm not saying you don't have to wear much of anything at all either, if you were a princess!" Backpedaling even further, "Unless you want to, because that's cool too!"

    "My father is one of the cool ones but..." she shakes her head. "It's complicated. He's cool. Mom is cool, too, but I haven't met her here yet." She blinks rapidly when she realizes what she said, "I mean, I've /met/ my mom, yeah, but just not /here/. I... Uh.... time travel is involved."
Xiomara Rojas As each of them speak, Crush looks back and forth between them trying to pay attention to their words without taking anything personally. Her adoptive mother had always said that listening was a skill, but then the woman had been drugged out of her mind at the time and listening to the purple ferrets that always seemed to talk to her.

"I could go with wearing nearly nothing," she idly comments, having noted the blush that came to Irie's cheeks. This was the devilish streak in the half-Czarnian, a part of her personality that always seemed to sneak out. "I mean, don't get me wrong... sounds like this Kori princess might be just the kinda girl I'd like to see in mostly nothing, but you can bet I rock a bikini without trouble."

Lifting her arms she strikes a bodybuilder pose, flexing the muscles in her arms as she does and honestly, she fits that body builder type so it looks good. While striking this pose however, she changes the topic, mostly for blushing Irie's sake. "I fell to earth wrapped in Obelus, landed in the middle of a Burning Man Festival, and got adopted by a couple of drugged out hippies who got killed a few years back. They were good parents," she drops the pose she was in, still grinning. "Except for the lies."
Madison Evans     "Killed? Gosh I'm sorry to hear that!" Madison says in a voice that's partly sympathetic - but also largely... aghast. "That must have been so hard! I mean, my dad can be the absolute WORST, and I'd still be sad if something happened to him. And mom can be strict - but she's alright, really. I'd- gosh, I'd hate to lose either of 'em. I'm //so// sorry."
Irie West     The edges of Irie's lips drop into a sympathetic frown, "Oh! Goodness! That's rough. I'm sorry for your loss. And... um... for the lies I guess. It's hard when a parent lies to you. My dad kept...." she shakes her head. "It wasn't really a lie, he just didn't bring attention to it and I ended figuring it out anyway."

    Done being vague she switches subjects. "Anyway. How are you finding school?"
Xiomara Rojas Sympathy. Real and honest, offered freely, from complete strangers. Crush wasn't used to that at all. Most times people take one look at her, assume the worse and so that's what she is, the worse. Mean, intimidating, even scary, but these two had approached her with nothing but kindness, overwhelming kindness in fact, and now they were both very sincerely offering comfort over the lost of her human adoptive parents. She looks stunned over this, forced to shift her glance between them while trying to decide if they were playing some sort of trick on her, but she already knew they weren't. How she knew that, she didn't know, but she /knew/ it through and through.

"They uh... they coulda just left me in the field," she sort of mutters, realizing now that she never really grieved over losing them, she just moved on, moved past and got by. "But they decided to take me in. Was too much for em really, always on the move, always on the run, but they weren't all bad."

Reaching up to her head, she runs a gloved hand through her hair, then switches to the other question asked. "The schools alright. Never been to a real school before now, so... yeah. Just gotta not punch people," she reminds herself as well as informs them. "That's the rule to stay, even though I'm older than the other kids."
Madison Evans     "Sounds like they were good people," Madison remarks, still sympathetic. "You were lucky they found you. I mean, even if it ended up sad in the end. Still better you got to know 'em, you know? I mean. ... that's what I've heard said before, anyways." Madison doesn't have a great deal of experience with real grief, though.
    "This school's great. And - yeah. Punching isn't exactly, you know. ...welcomed. But I love it here! I was real upset about moving at first, but I'm glad now."
Irie West     "Neither have I," Irie admits. "I mean... for the first five years of my life I was just kind of running around with my dad going on adventures. I studied a bit. Went to the local library and speed taught myself the basics. Get some of the textbooks, and spend an hour and *BAM* I know American history." She grins, "But after coming here, I learned there was a difference between just /knowing/ stuff and really knowing how to use it, you know?"

    She shakes her head, "They don't let me use my powers at school, unless it's an emergency. I have to do everything the slow way." She lets out a helpless shrug. "It was annoying at first, but I got used to it."
Xiomara Rojas Crush glances toward the school, wondering if there was some way they could keep her from, well... being herself. Everything about her was natural, not precisely powers like a mutant has, but innate abilities.

"So you don't just move like a bat outta hell," is said as she looks to Irie. "but you can actually /think/ at those speeds, and thus learn that quick. That's kinda cool actually, as if being able to go from point A to point B at those speeds isn't already cool, but they make ya slow down here?"

She couldn't help but think how that kind of speed in the fighting rings would be useful, it just came with having spent so much time fighting the varies inhumans, mutants and aliens that managed to get into the underground fight scene.

"Mostly home schooled til now, cause we were always on the move," she then says with a slight shrug. "I'm not really good at this whole 'being nice and social' thing. Not normally nice at all, but uh... " she looks at Madison, then to Irie. "... not sure why I ain't being my old self round you two. Probably cause I keep hear that lady MacIntyre's voice in my head, an I ain't got no where else to go."
Madison Evans     "She's intimidating, ri-" From the look on Maddie's face when she glances at her phone - Ms. MacIntyre isn't the only intimdating woman around. "Uh-oh," she mumbles.
    "I'm so late mom drove 'round in the car. She's waiting out front for me. Okay, gotta go, BYE!" And with that - she bolts. Not as fast as Irie by any rate - but faster than you'd think a girl like her could run.
Irie West     "Okay, bye Maddie!" Irie waves to her departing friend. She turns her attention to their new friend. "I should get going too. I'll see you around, okay? You can sit with us during lunch so you don't have to sit by yourself. Byeee!" And with a flash of yellow and red, she's gone.
Xiomara Rojas Watching the level of concern and panic wash over Madison before she darted off to the front of the school, Crush offered an on sort of wave after her. Parent who worried, that made sense at least.

"Uh sure... thanks," she offers to Irie. "See ya round." Then as quickly as the cheerful speedster has appeared, she was gone, leaving Crush standing there questioning a great many things, including why she wasn't herself. Probably the whole 'new to school' thing, or more likely the fact that Madison and Irie were seriously likable types.